Gregory Carlin
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Posts posted by Gregory Carlin
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I was interviewed by the Arab media solidly for months because I had previously encountered one of the Abu Ghraib people in Arizona.
They had one question.
What happened to the women at Abu Ghraib?
Do we have a Camelot in pictures?
Any views on the topic?
Added later
For example:
(1) Did the US simply go into dialogue with itself in relation to the photographs?
(2) Was Abu Ghraib 'unamerican' within the context of domestic prisons.
(3) What evidence was there to suggest the females were treated differently?
(4) Were there any model soldiers (good apples) at Abu Ghraib?
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Gregory was going to give us chapter and verse on the American feminists who despise Democracy Now!
"Despising" is neither here nor there but I would be interested to hear their arguments.
I don't think I promised chapter and verse.
I was given a mention (unflattering) by Joe Arpaio in this broadcast. As far as I am aware I have no other connection with DN.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/024257
DN are (thought to have) the corporate view that the feminist movement allegedly collapsed because of its opposition to pornography.
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Oh well, I know I shouldn't but here goes.
(1) Its a Womans individual right to choose. Do you seriously believe that banning abortion would make the problem go away.It would simply mean a return to "Back street abortionist's" Then watch the body count rise.
(2) Isnt it strange, that the very people who proclaim with such certainty that the state cant possibly save peoples Jobs-nieghbourhoods by direct intervention, are the same people who cant wait to "get busy" with abortion, gay marrage, right to die, etc. it seems to me that the very places were individual freedoms are needed, are the places that the state seeks to deny them.
I know this is an issue where feelings run both high and deep, and I certainly dont pretend to have all the answers. But like it or not, its the womans choise, and having decided on this painful course of action, she needs our support, not our vilification... All the best ..Steve.
The right to chose is just an idea, it may be reflected legislatively in some jurisdictions or it might not, in which case abortion may not be allowed.
The relationship between abortion and choice is not universal, female feticide in China and India for example is not really about choice.
The euthanasia of infants and abortion will possibly be merged in Holland in order to protect doctors who are already doing both.
The right to die will ultimately turn into a reality TV show. Gay marriage is probably not something the vast majority of homosexuals will want to do.
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Gregory wrote:
The military handle disasters and the sensible expectation is that the best laid plans will frequently go astray.
Didn't a Scottish poet pen a famous saying about the "best laid plans"?
You are, of course, correct.
I think one of the problems is New Orleans should have designated one official to do nothing but plan a bus evacuation, line up drivers and do all else that was necessary to get the bus evacuation ready.
I'll post it later but just read a USA Today article that states that Bush was hopping mad at the delays in the federal assistance. One suspects heads will roll, but again I think the problem started with a failed evacuation plan. I'll try to look up the statistics re the percentage of Keys residents who evacuate when a mandatory evacuation is ordered.
New Orleans has had corruption and hence organizational efficiency problems for so long it may as well have been forever. On the other side of the coin the people in Washington DC were knowledgeable of those deficiences.
"Meanwhile, more Britons have arrived home with harrowing tales. Gerard Scott, from Merseyside, said police officers had urged women to bare their breasts in return for being rescued."
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/46440.html
"[The authorities] said to them, 'Well, show us what you've got' – doing signs for them to lift their T-shirts up. The girls said no, and [the rescuers] said 'well fine,' and motored off down the road in their motorboat. That's the sort of help we had from the authorities," he said.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46160
Certainly sounds like New Orleans.
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Mark Knight had posted that every city should have an evacuation plan for emergencies. This obviously makes logical sense. Well I heard on a talk show that New Orleans did indeed have such a plan, and it even called for the use of school buses to assist in the evacuation of citizens without cars! The problem is the plan was never implemented. (Makes you wonder if the mayor had even read the plan.)
What follows is a partial excerpt from an article on Salon today:
Engineers have warned for decades that a massive hurricane might drown New Orleans. So why are the efforts to evacuate the city in such chaos? Didn't somebody have a plan?
Well, yes, kind of. The "Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan" does note that a hurricane the strength of Katrina might push a 20-foot storm surge into New Orleans, that levees might break, pumps might fail, and the drinking water supply, electricity and sewage system might go kaput. The plan "prescribes the actions to be taken at each stage of a catastrophic hurricane emergency."
But the plan doesn't mention anything about how a killer hurricane might make evacuating the city rather tricky, much less a logistical nightmare. In fact, it says absolutely zero about how to handle an evacuation once the city is flooded.
The plan appears on the Web site of the state's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under a button labeled "Plans." It was last revised in January 2000 and goes hand-in-hand with the state's Emergency Operations Plan, which outlines government agencies' responsibilities in big emergencies.
Mark Smith, the office spokesman, did not return requests for comment on the plan. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Walter Baumy, chief of the Army Corps engineering division in New Orleans, says authorities could not have anticipated Katrina's impact. "There was a plan in place," Baumy said. "[Katrina's impact] was much more than envisioned. The city has never seen anything like this."
According to the plan, state officials had a good idea how a storm like Katrina would deluge the city. "Tidal surge, associated with the 'worst case' Category 3, 4 or 5 Hurricane Scenario for the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area," it reads, "could cause a maximum inundation of 20 feet above sea level in some of the parishes in the region, not including tidal effects, wind waves and storm rainfall."
The evacuation planners also knew that New Orleans could not handle that much water. "The area is protected by an extensive levee system, but above normal water levels and hurricane surge could cause levee overtopping or failures," it reads. It also says the city's now-famous pumps might give out, and that a catastrophic hurricane would result in "complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings" and might require a "massive evacuation." It just does not say how to do that when 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater.
The plan states that to avoid danger, most people should get in their cars and drive away before the storm comes. "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles," it reads. School buses and government vehicles will move everybody without a car. Interstate highways will be converted into one-way outbound evacuation routes (All of that did happen.)
Although the article states that all of that did happen, we know that it did not. I am sure you have seen by now the photographs of the school buses sitting parked. I understand that most of the buses were destroyed by the flood.
Of course, an effective plan would have included provisions for who would drive the buses. It is possible the buses were not used because such arrangements could not be made in the face of the emergency.
Does anyone know whether the City has yet answered why the buses were not used for evacuation?
The British and Dutch experience of similar flooding is that plans do not live up to expectation on the day. The British invested a large amount of money to protect London. I am not sure how they responded in other parts of the UK.
The military handle disasters and the sensible expectation is that the best laid plans will frequently go astray.
http://www.open2.net/naturalhistory/1953.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_floods/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_f...xperience.shtml
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Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association for Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, has called for members of the far right British National Party to be legally barred from working in schools.
Although I hate everything the BNP stands for, I find this suggestion very worrying. First of all, it will not have the desired impact of keeping fascists out of the classroom. They will just leave the BNP before any legislation is introduced. If they get away with banning the BNP they will then go after extremist groups on the left. The problem is that the three main parties are sitting on each other’s laps in the centre, anything outside the mainstream will be seen as extreme.
The suspension of teachers in relation to their politics is not something that the teaching unions in Britain have hitherto endorsed.
Solihull Council, in a written statement, said: "The conduct of the teacher in the classroom was not in question."
Which is more than can be said for the conduct of many teachers who have been able to rely upon the full backing of their associations etc.
The NASUWT has a 'Campaign for Anonymity'. The irony will hopefully not be lost should that aspect be debated in the future.
The Catholic Church has apparently been given a present endorsed by the DfES to fire & hire with 'disruptive' politics in view.
The Green Party (for example) also have very disruptive politics if viewed from a purely Catholic perspective and the precedent is unambiguous.
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What is happening in the World? A prominent Australian politician has spoken out against head scarves. That was followed by a round of comments that showed this was contrary to Australian legislation to discriminate against any groups.
Doesn't Royalty wear skirts on official occassions? Do clotes really "maketh the man" or are we able to look past external ornaments to the person?
I have always found that trivial obedience to contrived dress codes has always been important to many of my colleagues but never to me.
It is of supreme and hopefully lasting indifference to me what my students wear. I am much more concerned by their brains than their dress.... I tentatively suggest that this is as it should be
The imposition of a shalwar kameez style of dress code in Britain was inevitable because eccentricity has more friends than commonsense.
Modesty precautions should eschew the banning of traditional schoolgirl attire such as skirts. The 'gender free' policy was an arrogant imposition
The DfES have been urged by the courts to offer proper advice in relation to the SDA and Human Rights Act, the DfES does not want to do so.
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What is happening in the World? A prominent Australian politician has spoken out against head scarves. That was followed by a round of comments that showed this was contrary to Australian legislation to discriminate against any groups.
Doesn't Royalty wear skirts on official occassions? Do clotes really "maketh the man" or are we able to look past external ornaments to the person?
The skirt issue was complicated by the DfES not feeling able to immediately and clearly agree that there was a precise understanding with the EOC.
"Current guidance on equal opportunities gives an example of girls being "allowed to wear trousers where they wish to do so" - the implication being that they should also be allowed to wear skirts." & "Just a quick addition to confirm the EOC advice you received , i.e. that the DfES has not sought to encourage the prohibition of skirts (or any other item of clothing for that matter) in school uniforms."
It took several weeks to obtain a statement (which could be made public) from the DfES symmetrical to the the EOC understanding of the DfES/EOC dialogue.
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Why so many people with different opinions often after trying to argue their point of view decide to leave???
This happened here and there and I feel sad. Debates tend to be one sided and unjust. Is this forum a megaphone for one single view? Or should this forum be a multitude of opinions and debates and ideas and views?
Why it’s not so then? How much are we all loosing in our intellectual ability when the “right views” are forcing different other views away?
Carrie has not been forced to leave this forum. Nor has anyone else. However, there has been a tendency for people with right-wing views to leave the forum while engaged in intellectual debate. I have always assumed that this has got something to do with an inability to argue their case.
The rehnquistian imperative of states' rights over federal power should not apply to a third world administration in Louisiana.
New Orleans has been a cause for despair for more years than I can remember. Corruption was systemic and a fact of life in New Orleans.
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John-
I've been wondering about the reactions of otehr countries to our tragedy. I appreciate your thoughts. However, not all is at it seems. The money to re-inforce the levees had been allocated by our Congress for over 20 years. New Orleans as a city refrained from using it and would frequently take the money from the allotment to go toward other things. Most of New Orleans current plight is their own fault. Yes, the majority of those left behind are black. New Orleans is a primarily black city. I've been there several times. These minorities are not just poor. Many of them are well off and own and run the businesses in the Quarters which are central to the annual Mardi Gras Festivities. The people still in New Orleans for the most part, simply chose not to leave.
SNIP
The responsibility for the ramshackle and corrupt government which has infested New Orleans for so long has to rest with somebody.
I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.
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A few thoughts from Sweden …
Here's something from the website of the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (one of those 'welfare state' agencies in Europe):
"The Swedish Rescue Services Agency’s (SRSA) planned departure of aid to the disaster area New Orleans didn’t go ahead on Sunday. However, planning continues so that aid can be despatched at a later stage.
The reason the SRSA flight didn’t depart on Sunday was that the US authorities do not at present have the facilities to receive foreign humanitarian aid.
The SRSA’s planned despatch includes, for example, water purification plants and communications equipment. A team of five would accompany the equipment.
If aid is eventually despatched it will be by Hercules aircraft of the Swedish Armed Forces taking off from Landvetter Airport, which is just outside Gothenburg.
The SRSA will, over the next few days, maintain continuous contact with the relevant Swedish and US authorities.
It was on Thursday evening that the SRSA responded to the general request from the US for overseas help. The Swedish Government decided on Friday to task the SRSA with the planning for and execution of despatching humanitarian aid to the US if they request it."
The initial response from Sweden came on the day of the disaster when the Embassy in Washington offered Swedish aid. It took until Thursday lunchtime, Swedish time (i.e. Thursday morning, Washington time) for the response to be answered by the US.
What the SRSA can and will provide includes pre-fabricated houses and an emergency mobile telephone system (for existing cellphones).
There have been a couple of good articles by Paul Krugman in the New York Times about the consequences of 'starving the beast' (i.e. minimising public services in favour of private ones). Basically, if you think that the private sector can create a civilised, fully-functioning modern state, then think again. The United States had a good public sector for enough years in the 20th century to provide a basic infrastructure, and it's taken 30 years or so of neglect for that infrastructure to start showing the strain. In the first years after the freeze on investment and the privatisation of all the 'profitable' bits, the machine will keep running on its own momentum. Then things start to break down (take a look at the UK water, electricity, gas, sewerage, public transport, telephone, etc, etc systems or the Swedish electricity supply system after deregulation).
The tragedy for just about all of the Sun Belt states is that their basic infrastructure was never that good in the first place and that there just weren't any people in positions of authority who pushed to provide states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama with a 'first-world' society. Perhaps one of the 'good outcomes' of this terrible natural disaster, though, will be to help wean European voters off the idea that you can cut public services without there being any real costs.
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Two of the countries which have offered aid to the USA, by the way, are Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba has offered the services of 1100 doctors and Venezuela offered to send 2000 troops to assist in maintaining law and order. Now I'm sure that Chavez was just wanting to make a point (since the Robertson 'take out Chavez' suggestion the week before), but Cuba's provided highly-qualified professionals enough times to enough places for me to think that Castro's motives included genuine humanitarianism (please note the word 'included'!).
Law and order in New Orleans at the best of times has presented difficulties.
It would be better for President Chavez to simply send refined oil products at whatever asking price he has in mind.
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From today's "Key West Citizen":
KEY WEST — Sarah Bleckley's parents cried as a guard led their daughter away in handcuffs Wednesday to begin a five-year prison sentence for leaving her newborn baby in the stairwell of a Key West hotel in May of 2003.
Bleckley, 25, pleaded no contest to manslaughter. Her sentence includes an additional 10 years of probation after her release.
Judge Mark Jones had to decide on a prison sentence between three and seven years, giving Bleckley credit for the 352 days she had already spent in the Monroe County Detention Center.
In 2003 Bleckley, then 23, gave birth to a baby girl in the Radisson hotel in Key West. She wrapped the infant in towels, placed her in a plastic bag and left the bundle in an outdoor stairwell. A hotel security guard later found the bag and began to deliver it to the garbage, but while separating the hotel's towels from what he thought was garbage, he found the dead newborn.
Kill a baby a day before it is due, no problem.
Kill a newborn baby, get five years.
Something is wrong with this picture!
Sending that lady to jail for five years is a disgrace. In the United Kingdom or Ireland she would probably not have spent a day in jail.
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There's a law in this country now, where if a robber shoots a woman that, didn't even know she was pregnant yet - he can get an extra sentence for a life that nobody knew was there. That's BS. That's steaming, fly-infested, BS. But I digress...
I
Pregnant women can often be specifically targeted for murder. Homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States.
Laws that differentiate between types of victim are not entirely uncommon.
Murdering a judge is now a capital crime in Texas (due to legislative change) and shooting a police officer may be viewed similarly etc.
The alleged superfluousness or unreasonableness of mandatory and consecutive tariffs for multiple crimes is a different issue.
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A cautionary detail to be considered is the fact that we have yet to see a court of law play with the issue by way of solid precedent.
The EOC advised they had arranged or negotiated guidance on a DfES website. I then dutifully asked the DfES to confirm that they had indeed arrived at the conclusion suggested by the EOC.
From the EOC
At the Equal Opportunities Commission our position is that there should be a choice whether girls wear a skirt or trousers, and that it should not be prescribed one way or another. This is reflected in the amendment we secured in the Department for Education and Skills guidance, part of which I am including below:
"Schools should ensure that their uniform policy does not discriminate on grounds of gender, for example, girls should normally be allowed to wear trousers. Uniform rules should not disadvantage one gender compared with the other" (DfES Guidelines).
From the DfES
"Current guidance on equal opportunities gives an example of girls being "allowed to wear trousers where they wish to do so" - the implication being that they should also be allowed to wear skirts."
"Just a quick addition to confirm the EOC advice you received , i.e. that the DfES has not sought to encourage the prohibition of skirts (or any other item of clothing for that matter) in school uniforms."
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It seems to me that the main way we could achieve this social cohesion was for children from different cultures to mix in school. This is not currently possible because of the policy of having schools based on religion. This is a policy that has had a terrible long-term impact in Northern Ireland. Although this is clear to all politicians, they are too afraid of upsetting powerful pressure groups to change their policy on this issue.
I couldn't agree more. The best way to secure a more rational and peaceful world is to educate all children in secular comprehensive schools. Unfortuntately no such school yet exists in the UK.
Some French children do not get a school education because of the aggressively secular regime in the French Republic.
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The Conservative education spokesman recently made a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre where he outlined his ideas on how to use schools to tackle terrorism. He advocates that children from different religious and social backgrounds should take part in pupil exchanges, with teenagers visiting neighbouring schools to improve social cohesion.
It seems to me that the main way we could achieve this social cohesion was for children from different cultures to mix in school. This is not currently possible because of the policy of having schools based on religion. This is a policy that has had a terrible long-term impact in Northern Ireland. Although this is clear to all politicians, they are too afraid of upsetting powerful pressure groups to change their policy on this issue.
A key historical part of Catholics demonstrably wanting little to do with the Northern State was separate schooling. The Department of Education was set up in 1921 and in 1964 the first Northern Ireland Prime Minister visited a Catholic school. What else do you need to know?
Integrated schooling is not going to happen in Northern Ireland to any developed extent. The sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation are organized in schools. Catholics do not want teachers giving lessons on how to put condoms on a banana or talking about the mechanics of anal sex.
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It occured to me the other day that maybe our leaders have learned the wrong lessons from the Munich pact. Since the end of the Second World War, American Presidents have sent young Americans into battle under the guise of not appeasing a tyrant, the latest example being President Bush's claim that we needed to invade Iraq and stop appeasing Hussein.
But was the lesson of Munich really that appeasement leads to a massive war? Could it be that leaders for the last fifty years have led their countries into battle from a bad position? In reality the question should be what did appeasement achieve. Did it buy time for those opposed to Hitler and Germany's ambitions to prepare their countries for war? Did it buy time for Germany? This then raises other questions, would Hitler have continued without the appeasement? Did the allies prepare their countries for war?
Hitler's record is pretty clear, he would have continued his policy of expansion regardless of the outcome of Munich. Americans tend to forget that they never saw the carnage the First World War left on the landscape of Europe, and the mindset of both the leaders and people of all countries involved. Having first hand knowledge of this carnage, it is clear that the leaders of Britain and France were hoping to spare their populations from having to survive a second war being fought on their soil.
So then the question is, what was the real lesson of Munich? Could it be simply that one should not announce "Peace in our time" or is there a lesson to learn at all.
"If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."
There was a lesson, as history folded over their empire, the rhetoric of resistance became true, and in that adversity the British were like Romans.
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Chávez leads a bloc of radicalism in South America which is potentially hostile to the United States.
I think you mean 'potentially hostile to capitalism' don't you?
Let us please have the intelligence to distinguish between peoples and systems. I am sure for instance that Snr Chavez would suport the working class of the USA wholeheartedly.
Moreover Chavez is no Mugabe and it is an attempt at an easy cheap political point by you to suggest that he is. Do you have any evidence for your implied slur??
Incidentally do you believe that it is acceptable for the American capitalist elite to organise the assasination of the legtimate leaders of States who may hold challenging views?
If so do you also believe that such a course of action could be regarded as consistent with a Christian viewpoint?
He is hostile to private property and religion when it is not allied to his regime. He is overtly anti-American in the broader sense.
Conservatives in the US are more concerned with the Arab world, the Middle East, Iran and North Korea. Communism is not the enemy.
The people of the United States will pay the going rate for oil, they don't need a cut-price friendship with Chavez or anybody else.
South American countries with policies favourable to US economic interests will be looked upon with a glad eye by President Bush.
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What is interesting is that Chavez is demonised so much by the American "Christian" Right like Robertson not on moral grounds but rather because he seeks to improve the lot of the poor in his own country. To do so effectively puts him on a collision course with free market global capitalists. One might have thought that gentle soul Jesus Christ might have approved of the meek at least inheriting something of the earth but apparently instead he was a staunch follower of grasping capitalism
Chavez is a threat to the capitalist right in the States because he exposes the inhuman inegalitarianism of global capitalism and seeks to do something about it.
Apparently if you believe in land reform and wealth distribution within your own country you deserve to be taken out by the CIA.... it is indeed a strange, dangerous and perplexing world order we live in under the "protection" of dear old Uncle Sam.
Mugabe also believes in land reform, Chávez leads a bloc of radicalism in South America which is potentially hostile to the United States.
Ireland offers a successful precedent for the transfer of land to the people. There is no profit in chaos, psychic revenge & wrecking are a poor diet.
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This is a hot topic in Texas and the teachers are on the losing side of the argument. The assumption is that the teacher is always guilty and even when proved innocent, they still suffer great indignities and most often have lost their teacher credentials.
In Texas if a student attacks a teacher the school can not suspend the student nor punish them. If they attack the teacher again then they can be suspended for three days, but allowed to make up their work as it is an excused absence.
The only option a teacher has is to go to the legal authorities and file an assult charge against the student. While this may take of the student for a time, the teacher may lose their job for filing the charge without the schools permission.
In todays society all of the ills of the public school system is laid at the feet of the instructors.
It is possible some prosecutions are a little zealous. In Texas it is a feather in the cap of law enforcement to get a teacher.
In the UK if a student rapes a teacher it is guaranteed to be front page news, if a teacher uses a child for sex it is page 8.
To make the front pages of the British print media the sexual abuse narrative has to be fairly bizarre or particularly vile.
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I cannot remember the last time the Tories can up with an educational policy I agreed with. However, I agree with this one. This statement is taken from the Conservative Party website.
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=n...e&obj_id=118065
Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins has called for anonymity for teachers facing allegations of abuse from school pupils.
And stressing the need to protect teachers from malicious claims, he pointed out that the way they are accused, named and in most cases cleared of abuse results not only constitutes an injustice, but damages discipline in the classroom.
Referring to recent cases which clearly demonstrate the unfairness of the current system - including the acquittal of a Peterborough teaching assistant who was suspended for nine months after a malicious assault accusation, and the Isle of Wight head teacher who tragically committed suicide after allegations of abuse were made against him, Mr Collins said:
"Teachers are harassed, insulted, and attacked every day in our schools. One is assaulted every seven minutes. Yet the scales of justice are weighted terribly against them. If a teacher tries to restrain a violent and disruptive pupil or break up a fight, he may face suspension or even the end of his career. If a child chooses to utter the word 'abuse', the teacher will face a presumption of guilt not innocence - and may find their professional and personal lives utterly ruined."
Mr Collins added: "The vast majority of teachers accused of abuse are subsequently cleared - but the strain and stress involved, which often includes being spat at in the street and having homes and cars attacked, means that the incidence of suicide among teachers facing this vile accusation is alarmingly high. It is hardly surprising in these circumstances that discipline in our schools is declining just as rapidly as stress levels among teachers reaches record highs. How can anyone impose order in our classrooms if they know that any single child uttering one single word could finish their careers?"
The Shadow Minister called for immediate legislation designed to give teachers a statutory guarantee that their anonymity would be preserved, at least until the point when a formal criminal charge is brought in a court of law. He said: "Labour ministers sadly refuse to act on this persistent demand from the teaching unions, choosing instead to rely solely on guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers and a voluntary agreement with local newspapers. This will not give teachers remotely the protections they need.
"In the Queen's Speech, the Government introduced several pieces of legislation which could provide the vehicle for this statutory guarantee. If they continue to refuse to act to protect teachers from this most damaging and frightening position, the next Conservative Government will do so in our very first Queen's Speech as part of our Teacher Protection Bill."
Many allegations relate to circumstances which have no malicious actor. The police often have some empathy with the teachers they investigate.
The UK does not really maintain a database of allegations. There are current plans to deliver a vetting system based on convictions and allegations.
If teachers in the United Kingdom were to get anonymous status, a campaign in the United States to attach reporting criteria in relation to transfers of criminal intelligence by the FBI would be the inevitable result.
The United Kingdom has horrendous examples of teachers being acquitted in circumstances which defy belief.
There is little possibility of anonymous status because child protection advocacy has made it clear to the govt. the idea is entirely unacceptable.
British advocates have 'fighter cover' in the shape of experts in Washington DC who are a little suspicious about levels of educator misconduct in the UK.
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How did A.J.P. Taylor define 'communist'?
To get this figure he included in his calculations all Soviet citizens. I suppose he would argue that they did not all attend party meetings but not all Jews were active members of their religion.
The Nazis did not ask people if any of their grandparents were 'historic' communists in order to arrive at the criteria for death.
The attitude of the Nazis to Soviet citizens might depend on how badly pressed the military situation had become. The Nazis recruited Soviet citizens for the SS.
For example, soldiers from central Asia, the Ukraine and other occupied states took part in the campaign against the Polish resistance in Warsaw in 1944.
In the absence of discernable differences, the Nazis used the religious observance of a person's grandparents to determine their "race."
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You would think that the groundswell of opposition in the US - indicated by the success of Cindy Sheehan and the hysterical attacks on her by Fox News - plus the demonstrable fact that the US is bogged down in Iraq would persuade any sane person to avoid a "military option" in Iran.
Incidentally Amy Goodman's broadcast from "Camp Casey" on http://democracynow.org which anyone can view on realplayer is well worth watching.
Democracy Now are dispised by many US feminists who are engaged in the anti-war movement.
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'The Soviet version is nearer to the truth than most versions current in the west' A.J. P. Taylor.
A.J.P. Taylor could always be relied upon to make a controversial quote. That is why I always enjoy reading his books. You are always aware that he is a historian with a “point of view”. I remember being shocked when he wrote that the Nazis were responsible for killing more communists than Jews. Of course, when you think about it, he is right. It is just that historians don’t usually write like that. Taylor is a good example of a divergent thinker. At times he used this against the left and the right. I suspect that in reality he was close to being an anarchist.
The Nazis intended to kill every Jew they were able to put on a train or stand in front of a ditch or forest clearing.
The early orders to death squad units were to kill functionaries of the Comintern, members of central, district and regional committees, people's commissars and Jews in Party and State positions.
Heydrich was not intending to limit the actions to Jewish radicals, the Nazis were anticipating tens of millions of deaths as a consequence of the eastward expansion of the Reich. How did A.J.P. Taylor define 'communist'?
Religious Hatred Legislation
in Political Debates
Posted · Edited by Gregory Carlin
A bigger parish my Irish arse.
I took a call last Thursday wth *demands* from US child protection advocacy asking me to reduce the amount of child pornography British education was feeding onto the networks.
Added later
The prosecutors who were hounding the Catholic hierarchy more often than not had the unseemly parts of local administration under careful camouflage. The Catholic Church lost its immunity, they were not doing anything which was not mirrored by thousands of schools and local authorities throughout the USA. The victims associated with the civil abuses will not see million dollar settlements because the US taxpayer is not to be held liable for the excesses of officials.